Psalms...

Since I've been talking about it so much, I figured I should just let you know that you can find out more about the Psalms CD by clicking here, or pasting this link into your browser:
http://www.sovereigngracemusic.org/albums/category/sovereign_grace_music/psalms



Once again, I would highly recommend this CD! It is a great way to hear and remember scripture, and to rediscover the truths that it holds.

Praise the Lord With Everything

I learned something tonight. I had been searching for a long time for these french worksheets that would require much time to re-write, which is why I saved them from last year, so that I could use them again- or so I thought. I still haven't found them anywhere, and I have searched every possible place in the house where paper could be stored! Or even placed!
Anyways, at a particularly frustrating moment, when I frantically searched yet another cupboard and couldn't find anything, I laid down on the ground trying to think of where on earth I could look next. Consequently, I started listening to the song that was playing beside me. It was a song from the Psalms CD by Sovereign Grace, and starts off by singing

"Praise the Lord, oh praise His name."

I found myself thinking, yeah, I'll listen to this song after I find those papers. Then I can really praise God. I realized that I needed to praise God and be thankful even though I didn't have my papers. I figured I could still praise Him, until I heard this line;

"Everything that's in us, Praise Him"

Everything! I had been praising God in one way, but at the same time I was frustrated that He wasn't helping me. What was I thinking? Who am I to think that I know better than God? As I continued to listen to the song, these other phrases stood out to me;

"From the heights of heav’n He reigns
Seated in the highest place
Surrounded by unending praise"

Unending praise! That's what our Lord deserves. Why? A few moments later in the song, it tells us;

"Praise Him for His excellence
Look at what He’s done for us
Bore our sins upon the cross"

Jesus died for me, to save me from eternal death, and yet I wouldn't praise him with everything in me because I couldn't find my french worksheets! I am thankful that God taught me this lesson. I now see the foolishness of my thoughts. And once again, I am thankful for the Psalms CD and what it has shown me once again. This song left me with a good, summing-it-all-up challenge and reminder:

"Praise the Lord with all you are
Mind and soul and will and heart
From His hand comes everything
He alone is God and King"

I have learned more of my sin, and more of God's greatness. Now, with His help, I hope to be able to praise him no matter what the circumstance might be. I would encourage you that when times seem tough and God doesn't seem fair, remember the cross, and remember how Christ's death wasn't fair- but it sure was good for us! God is sovereign, and he knows what he's doing! And remember that he will not give you any temptation that is too hard for you, and along with any temptation, he will always give a way out, so that you will not be forced to fall, because God is faithful (1 Corinthians 10:13)! So now I will leave you with the lyrics to the song "Praise the Lord," from the Psalms CD by Sovereign Grace. And hopefully it will remind you of the wonderfulness of God, and how worthy he is to be praised!

Praise the Lord, Oh praise His name
From the heights of heav’n He reigns
Seated in the highest place
Surrounded by unending praise

Praise Him for His mighty deeds
Awesome in His majesty
Praise Him now with trumpet sound
Lift your voice and dance around

Everything that has breath, praise the Lord
Everything that’s in us, praise Him
Everything that has breath, praise the Lord

Praise the Lord with instruments
Praise Him for His excellence
Look at what He’s done for us
Bore our sins upon the cross

Praise the Lord with all you are
Mind and soul and will and heart
From His hand comes everything
He alone is God and King

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Worship (ASCAP)/Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

By clicking here you can listen to clips of all the songs on the CD, including the chorus of "Praise the Lord."
By clicking here you can download the whole song "Praise the Lord."

The Lord is My Shepherd

I have recently been very blessed by a song on Sovereign Grace's CD "Psalms". It is called "The Lord Is", and the lyrics say:

The depths of Your grace who can measure
You fully supply all I need
You restore my weary soul again and again
And lead me in Your righteousness and peace

You’re with me through every dark valley
There’s nothing that I have to fear
You are there to comfort me again and again
Protecting me, assuring me You’re near

The Lord is
The Lord is my shepherd
The Lord is
The Lord is my shepherd
I shall not want

You gave Your own life for my ransom
So I could rejoice at Your side
You have shown Your faithfulness again and again
There’s nothing good that You will not provide

I will dwell in Your house
All the days of my life
I will dwell in Your house
All the days of my life

Listening to this song on the bus one morning, I realized that I can live for God without holding back at all. I realized that I've been afraid to do anything for Jesus, thinking that I had to make sure that I will still have friends, still be liked, still not be thought of as weird. But when I heard the words "I shall not want," the depth of those words suddenly hit me. I will not need anything! The Lord will provide for any need that I have. I don't need to worry about providing for myself- I am a sheep, and I need a shepherd to protect me. And then I heard "there’s nothing good that You will not provide." How glorious is that! Not only will God provide necessities for me, but he will provide every good thing that I need! And he will "fully supply all I need." How much more can I ask for?!
And yet, I still sin. I don't live for the Lord like I should because I don't trust in this providing Shepherd. But I know that there is "nothing that I have to fear." Nothing! Why do I still cling to my sin, my pride then? Because I am a sinner.
But Christ has saved me, out of his grace, the depths of which "no one can measure." This song is full of so many glorious promises! And now that I am saved, even thought I still mess up, I can always know that "[Jesus] [is] there to comfort me, again and again, protecting me, assuring me [He's] near." And all these wonderful truths are promised to me because I was accepted into his grace, and now the Lord is my shepherd.




Thank you David for writing this psalm, and thank you to Sovereign Grace who put it to a song so that I could hear these truths in a new light, and could realize more of what they said! And most of all, thank you Lord for being my Shepherd, for opening my eyes to see what you've promised me, and for being so wonderful!

The Ten Plagues of Egypt, Part Four: Nature and the Plagues (the essay part)

Nature and the Plagues

By Chloe Martin

Sometime probably in the 1440’s BC, Egypt, the great nation, was flung into disaster because of their Hebrew slaves, the Israelites. Experiencing an onslaught of plague after plague, the Pharaoh finally gave the Egyptian’s riches to the slaves, as well as freedom from Egypt. Today, people wonder if this event, recorded in the Bible, is actually true, and if it was actually caused by God, and they strive to either prove or disprove it. I believe that God struck the Egyptians with 10 plagues that happened as the Bible relates it, and that He miraculously created these plagues, although he might have used nature as an assistant.

The natural explanations that some might use to explain the 10 plagues are too far-fetched to really make sense. Some of them seem more realistic, and maybe they were part of the nature that God used, as he has used nature before (also see Exodus 10:13 and 19). Also, if this explanation were true, and if the 10 plagues were only a very rare circumstance where many natural oddities happened at the same time, then there doesn’t seem to be an explainable reason why something even a little bit like this hasn’t happened any other time in history since.

There also seem to be many mistakes in the natural explanations, where they simply didn’t have a good scientific explanation. Also, the Ipuwer papyrus seems to tell the story much more like the Bible then the natural explanations. And I think that some of their explanations seem to treat the Egyptians as not nearly as smart as they were! Do scientists not think that Egyptians would be able to tell if it was a cloud of locusts blocking the sun?

- The Ipuwer Papyrus (see photo) is an ancient papyrus thought to have been written by an average Egyptian man named Ipuwer, and it records a disaster that struck Egypt. Some think that it is a poem of some sort, but a careful look shows you that it is amazingly similar to the 10 plagues related in the book of Exodus

- Excerpts from the Ipuwer Papyrus: “Plague stalks through the land and blood is everywhere … the river is blood. Does a man drink from it? As a human he rejects it. He thirsts for water … . Nay, but gates, columns and walls are consumed with fire … . Nay but men are few. He that lays his brother in the ground is everywhere … . Nay but the son of the high-born man is no longer to be recognized … . The stranger people from outside are come into Egypt .... Nay, but corn has perished everywhere. People are stripped of clothing, perfume and oil. Everyone says “there is no more”. The storehouse is bare … . It has come to this. The king has been taken away by poor men.”

- The natural explanations for the 10 plagues follow a sequence of events; in other words, if the one did not occur, the next one couldn’t have happened, but the first one triggered the second one to happen

- However, the circumstances are sort of weird twists, that seem to take every event to the extreme, and therefore seem very unlikely to have actually happened, especially in the very short time span that they would have had to happen in

- There are also many errors in the written explanations. For example, they say that biting flies would have transmitted diseases (that started when fish in the Nile died from the “blood”) to the livestock. But in reality, these flies don’t eat dead animals, and the disease can’t be transmitted by them. On top of that, the disease starts in the soil, not in water.

I think that the only real logical explanation for the 10 plagues is that they were a miracle from God. Whether He used nature for more than the plague of the locusts or not, I am not sure, but I do know that it was not just a bizarre coincidence of a bunch of natural disasters at the same time. There was a God behind it all, the God of the Israelites, the one true God. And he used these plagues to teach the Israelites, and us today, that he is powerful and in control of all the earth, but he is also the saviour for anyone who believes on him and him alone. As Jesus says to the unbelieving Pharisees in John 10:38, “even if you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” God performed the miracles of the 10 plagues to show that he is in control, and that he is the one to believe in. And if you can’t believe in him, as Jesus says, at least believe in the works!

The Ten Plagues of Egypt, Part Three: Ipuwer Papyrus

Ipuwer Papyrus:

This is an ancient Egyptian papyrus written by what seems to be an average Egyptian named Ipuwer. He recorded a great disaster that happened in Egypt that could very easily be the 10 plagues.

Some think that it is a poem of some sort, but a careful look shows you that it is amazingly similar to the 10 plagues related in the book of Exodus.

Some of the things that he recorded say:

“Plague stalks through the land and blood is everywhere … the river is blood. Does a man drink from it? As a human he rejects it. He thirsts for water … . Nay, but gates, columns and walls are consumed with fire … . Nay but men are few. He that lays his brother in the ground is everywhere … . Nay but the son of the high-born man is no longer to be recognized … . The stranger people from outside are come into Egypt .... Nay, but corn has perished everywhere. People are stripped of clothing, perfume and oil. Everyone says “there is no more”. The storehouse is bare … . It has come to this. The king has been taken away by poor men.”

To see a chart where much of the Ipuwer Papyrus is compared to Exodus, visit this site.

The Ten Plagues of Egypt, Part Two: The Chart

Plague	‘Natural’ Explanation	Problem with Natural Explanation
Water Turned into Blood	- a combination of red sand, a massive amount of red algae, and maybe some red ash from a volcano made the Nile unusually and unnatural color of red, like blood	- in flowing water, the algae would have been green, not red - that type of algae is also said to be an ice-water algae, and has never been found in Egypt - mud around the Nile is brown, not red, and it would have killed the algae anyways by blocking sunlight
Frogs	- the silt and sand in the water would have killed the fish in the river*, and forced the frogs out of the river, where they would swarm the land, and then eventually die off	- the fish couldn’t have died from algae de-oxygenizing the water, because algae doesn’t do that till it blooms, which it can’t do in flowing water
Gnats	- lack of frogs near the river would have meant that insects abounded - if the Nile was flooded, then maybe they were mosquitoes, and bred quickly in the wet climate	- Moses meets Pharaoh on the banks of the river (Ex 7.15), and the Egyptians dig along the river to try to find drinking water (Ex 7.24) – these couldn't have really happened if the river was actually flooded
Flies	- same as gnats - they were a type of biting fly (relevant to next plague)	- they don’t feed on dead animals (the type of biting fly it would have had to have been)
Livestock Die	- an abundance of flies could have also transported anthrax, *a disease started when the fish died	- no anthrax infections caused from fly bites has every been known in all the world - anthrax occurs in the soil, not in water
Boils	- the anthrax was passed on to humans from the flies and livestock	- same reasons as flies and livestock
Hail and Fire	- volcanic activity brings brimstone, which can change the weather system, and sometimes bring hail
Locusts	- because hail destroyed the crops, the locusts would swarm to the bits that were left - this would make them seem like more then when they were spread out	- Exodus 10:13 and 19 say that God used the wind to bring the locust in and to drive them all out so that “not a single locust was left in all the country of Egypt”
Darkness	- could have been volcanic ash, a solar eclipse, a sandstorm, or a huge swarm of locusts that blocked the sun	- all the red mud had washed into the Nile river and would have to completely dry out before becoming dust
Firstborn Die	- food could have been polluted by black mold or another disease from the last 2 plagues - food would have been given to the firstborn first, and so they would have gotten food poisoning, and they would have been the ones to die - Israelites didn’t get the poisoning because they ate prepared food, and ate it quickly, so it had less time to get diseases - could also be mistranslated, and actually mean first-fruits, from the harvest	- if it was actually mistranslated, then it really wouldn’t make sense, because Exodus 11:1–13:16 keep talking about the firstborn - what about Ex 13:2? It says: “Consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel, both of man and of beast, is mine.” - to me, the food poisoning doesn’t even make sense. Other people would have eaten too, so it wouldn’t have been only the firstborn. It seems to me like the only thing they could come up with, and it really just doesn’t make sense.

- God has used nature and natural resources in his miracles before, and Exodus 10:13 and 19 say that God used the wind to bring in the locusts, and to drive them out

- but we have to remember that this is the only plague that is described this way

- if it had been only nature in an odd and rare circumstance where everything happened at once, why hasn’t anything even like this happened again in all of history?

- clearly God’s hand was in all of this, and as Russell Grigg says in his paper, “a god who cannot work miracles is not a god worth following; nor is one who is incapable of communicating accurately what he did”

The Ten Plagues of Egypt, Part One: Introduction

Tonight I was finishing up a report I was doing for history class, where we are learning about Egypt. I chose to do my project on the 10 plagues, and I researched to see what historical and archaelogical evidence there was for them. The results astonished me- I had never thought so indepth about these things before! To me they were just stories of something God did- that was it. And I think that was good, but now, as I read, I learned more, but more about my amazing God.

I started off by reading Wikipedia and other non-Christian websites to see what they had. These posed questions to me that I had never thought of before. The most catching of all these, to me at least, was their "nature explanation" for the plagues. They have come up with a way to explain everything that happened in the plagues- at least, try to explain. It seems to me that they did a poor job in some of the plagues, the worst one being the firstborn son. But that will come!

After I read these sites, I went to www.AnswersInGenesis.org, and read an article that showed all the faults in the "natural explanation." And this was very helpful, as it backed up everything with science yet also scripture.

Anyways, before I rewrite this whole paper, I found researching this to be very interesting and yet helpful to me. And I think it was the most fun research assignment I've ever done - just ask my family!

A Good Start... A Good Book!

"A Good Start," a book for "young men and women," by C.H. Spurgeon is a great book that I picked up while we were in Washington. (well, it's great so far.. i'm only on the second chapter! but seeing that it's Spurgeon...) It's Spurgeon's only book for youth, and I really like the way that he writes simply and straight-forwardly, while staying interesting, communicating great truths, teaching the reader more about Christ, and being humorous! Actually, I was surprised how funny Spurgeon was! He caught me off-guard when in the first chapter I read this;

(he's talking about what a real Christian is and how people can be called Christians because they simply go to church or perform Christian rituals...)

I have nothing to do now with merely nominal Christianity. Do what you like with it. Use it as a football if you will.

But Spurgeon has also communicated great truths in this book. One of my favorite things he has said so far is this;

His religion is part and parcel of himself. He does not carry it with him, but it is in him.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone; but especially to young men and women, as it has so many great truths, but written in such a way as they are easier to understand, and explained fully. (It sounds funny saying this as I haven't read very much, but you can tell a lot from the first 30 or 40 pages!)